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Foodies look local for the freshest and tastiest fare
Image credit: Felis Wedgewood
Cookstown Greens 35-variety mesclun mix
Dress this riot of taste and colour only if you must; with such Ontario-grown greens (and yellows and oranges and reds) as peacock kale, calendula, lollo rosso and Japanese hot mizuna leaves, this salad doesn’t need help from the balsamic bottle. Gourmets have been known to pick it apart and
eat it leaf by leaf.
100 grams $9.99, at Harvest Wagon.
Pristine Oils from Persall Naturals
Most cooks know canola as the vanilla of oils: lacking flavour and colour, it’s perfectly inoffensive, but you wouldn’t want to drizzle it on bread. Pressed in Waterford, Ontario, without solvents, chemicals or preservatives and with minimal heat, Persall’s canola looks and tastes as nature intended: deep yellow and beguilingly nutty, perfect for dipping or as a dressing.
Price TBA, at A&P.
Andy Shay’s cheese box
No need to schlep to the markets in search of the perfect local cheese—Shay will deliver straight to your door. His Thanksgiving harvest selection includes a bloomy Ontario Guernsey cow’s milk cream, an oozy sheep’s milk cheese from Madawaska and picks from Quebec and New Brunswick.
$75 plus delivery, www.shaycheese.ca
Fresh figs from Feast of Fields
Laura Sabourin still gets incredulous looks when she tells people the decadent fresh figs she sells are grown in her Jordan greenhouse. It’s early days, still—she grew her first small crop just last year. Best to arrive at the market early, though. They sell out in a flash.
$2–$3.50 each, Dufferin Grove Farmers’ Market, Riverdale Farmers’ Market, until October 31.
Berkshire pork
At some point along the humble pig’s evolutionary track from dark, fatty and flavourful to its present incarnation as “the other white meat,” much of the goodness was bred out of it. A taste of Berkshire pork, from the heirloom pigs raised naturally near Georgian Bay for Cumbrae’s, should set any so-called “pork lover” straight. Call ahead—it’s cut to order and often in short supply.
Cumbrae’s, 481 Church St., 416-923-5600; 1636 Bayview Ave., 416-485‑5620.
TEST Originally published October 2006
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